Can we trust voting online?

Thankfully, the New Zealand government appears not to be pressing ahead with online voting — at least, for now.

An Electoral Amendment Bill was released yesterday, which improves online registration through its RealMe identification service, but nothing appears to have been said about actual online voting itself.

Voting online was always seen as one of those inevitable things as part of an e-transition, as it were, to an online world; something that we all saw as "a good thing".

But recent events have made me turn against such "progress".

Having free and fair elections are fundamental to the democratic process, but can we trust such e-ballots?

This all confirms how there will be those seeking to use hacking or other systems to rig an online ballot. And might such online fraud be easier to commit and harder to prove?

While New Zealand does not have the voter fraud seen in other countries, it does happen, and it was heartening to hear our Justice minister stress the integrity of elections when announcing the changes.

We hear talk that online voting is needed to encourage the young to turn out and vote.

But if they cannot be bothered to get off their backsides once every three years or so, are they worthy of the vote?

It cannot be that hard to pick up a photo ID and walk down or drive to the nearest polling station, present your credentials, go into a polling booth, and mark your cross next to a candidate.

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